


Apotheosis

by manic_intent



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Possessive Behavior, That AU where Alex is raised by Gabriel and Queen Evelyn, instead of by Michael and the orphanage system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:19:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1907400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Alex Lannon wakes up to an escalating argument just outside his room. He groans, crawls out of bed, skulks over to the ensuite bathroom and yawns, stretching as he studies himself in the mirror. </p><p>Eighteen. He looks no different-</p><p>"-maybe if you changed into a form that didn't have a <i>cock</i> you would be less of a fucking <i>prick</i>!" </p><p>Alex winces, even as he picks up his toothbrush. Queen Evelyn of Helena was just about beginning to break into her stride, and for someone whose normal speaking voice could be at times velvet, at times silk, when she was angry, she could probably shatter glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apotheosis

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm only watching this show for the eye candy, rofl. The plot is almost cartoonishly lolsy at parts, the Evil People Are Evil gets campy, but it's like a visual drug, for some reason, I can't stop watching it T_T So. 
> 
> I think one reason why I'm so interested in this SyFy show is that it seems like in post-apocalyptic casino angel world, nobody cares about gender or sexuality any longer (unless you're angelsexual). Helena is run by lesbians revering the Divine Feminine... and in episode 3, there's pretty much an openly gay Sergeant. Main character is still hetero, but hey, that's what fanfic is for. ;3 
> 
> For people trying my fics who haven't watched Dominion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOWpKUtBun8 is the series promo. :3

I.

On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Alex Lannon wakes up to an escalating argument just outside his room. He groans, crawls out of bed, skulks over to the ensuite bathroom and yawns, stretching as he studies himself in the mirror.

Eighteen. He looks no different-

"-maybe if you changed into a form that didn't have a _cock_ you would be less of a fucking _prick_!" 

Alex winces, even as he picks up his toothbrush. Queen Evelyn of Helena was just about beginning to break into her stride, and for someone whose normal speaking voice could be at times velvet, at times silk, when she was angry, she could probably shatter glass.

"My darling Evelyn-"

"Don't you _darling_ me, _Gabriel_ ," Evelyn growls, "Or I'll be sorely tempted to see if you can regenerate your _balls_." 

"How do you know if I have balls?" Gabriel asks pleasantly, in the _now-Evelyn-be-reasonable_ tone that the archangel seems to have engineered precisely to infuriate the undisputed leader of Helena City. "Angels are spiritual, non-gendered beings, with a non-gendered language, remember?"

"We could check right _now_. With a knife," Evelyn hisses, and hastily, Alex spits and washes his face, then finishes the rest of his morning routine at warp speed. When he all but tumbles out into the corridor, Gabriel arches an eyebrow at him, utterly unfazed by the impending threat to his balls or lack thereof. 

"Happy name day," Gabriel offers, looking impeccable as ever in his leather armour, all supple overlapping plates and butter-soft sleeves, his gauntlets folded behind the back of his black long leather coat. His mouth twists with a merciless amusement intimately familiar to Alex, through all of his childhood, and even as Alex opens his mouth, Queen Evelyn steps over, tutting as she fixes his collar and tiptoes to arrange the fringe of his short hair to her satisfaction. 

The Queen of Helena is a slender, deceptively petite woman of seemingly indeterminable age, her face oft times too severe to be conventionally beautiful, her eyes often narrowed and hard, her hair today dyed a bright bottle orange, in stark contrast with the rich dark purple of her abaya and burqa, the Queen's colours. Crow's feet are webbed at the edge of her eyes, deepening to sharp, severe lines as she frowns slightly.

"Happy _birthday_ ," Evelyn says pointedly, and purses her lips as she straightens the heavy purple scarf over his white jacket, caught over his left shoulder with a golden pin that keeps the rich purple of the Queen's Colours attached. 

"Thank you, your Majesty, and good morning," Alex grins, and Evelyn softens a little.

"Such a sweet boy. Unlike that oafish affront to fashion beside you." 

Gabriel feigns surprise. "Why, I thought that you would _never_ realize how visually _offensive_ that shade of purple is on the eyes. Con _grat_ ulations."

Evelyn's eyes start to narrow dangerously again, and Alex adds hastily, to divert the oncoming row, "I don't feel different. Nothing happened either."

"Well _yes_ ," Gabriel snorts. "What did you expect would happen, child? That you'll wake up on your eighteenth birthday and suddenly gain the ability to shit rainbows?"

"I just thought that..." Alex shrugs, "That something would be more _obvious_ , that's all. If I'm the chosen one. Whatever that means." 

"Don't you worry about it, sweet child," Evelyn glowers briefly at Gabriel. "Just enjoy your _birthday_. I have instructed the kitchens to make today very special for you, and Arika has taken the whole day off from her duties to accompany you. Isn't that nice?"

"Really?" Alex brightens up, then he sobers. "I don't want to trouble anyone."

"Save your breath, boy. The Queen wants to set a spy on you in case you sprout horns or something through the day," Gabriel cuts in dryly, studying him thoughtfully. "It seems that the giving of presents on a nameday is one of your many quaint human customs."

"You tell me, sir," Alex says blandly, "You've _only_ been around for all of them."

"Familiarity breeds disrespect among you two-legged beasties," Gabriel says, with arch sadness, and draws something from under his coat. It's a small black feather, palm-length, clasped at the end with a catch made of what looks like steel, with a chain looped through. He tosses it over, and Alex catches it reflexively, one-handed. Close up, the steely, iridescent sheen of the feather and the strange, unyielding texture of it makes it obvious enough _whose_ feather it really is.

"Isn't this..." Alex blinks, even as Evelyn pulls a face.

"A _feather_? That's like giving someone a bag of nail clippings for a present!" 

"Well," Gabriel drawls, "If that's what you little bipedal beasties prefer-" 

"No, I really like it," Alex assures Gabriel hastily, and he _does_. 

He's always been fascinated by angels' wings - Gabriel's wings, by the way they pull up and disappear into nothing, by the way they could act like shears, or a shield. The way they could carry their owner into a sweeping arc in the air within an instant, accelerating just as quickly as any of Helena's F-16s. Before the notoriously mercurial Gabriel changes his mind, Alex quickly fastens the chain around his neck, under the scarf, where the dark feather hangs as a shimmering black gash over the brilliant white of his double-breasted jacket. 

"Arika will show you _our_ present. It'll be _far_ more suitable than some old moulting," Evelyn sniffs, still unimpressed, though she leans forward to peck Alex briefly on the cheek. "Enjoy your day, dear. Council calls." 

"Yes, your Majesty, and thank you." Alex bows, in the elaborate courtly fashion of Helenae men, and Evelyn inclines her head before sweeping away imperiously. Once she is out of earshot, Gabriel snorts. 

"That female is unbearable."

Alex hides his grin, even as he falls into step beside Gabriel, heading towards the Artemisa Overlook, where Alex customarily takes his breakfast. "You like her." 

"What part of 'unbearable' did you fail to understand, Alex?"

"You're part of the reason why she became Queen, sir." 

Gabriel lets out a deep sigh. "Much to my regret. When I came into possession of your squalling infant self-"

"-you had to look far and wide for a surviving human female with the capacity to feed me, and the Queen was the first you found-" 

"-and she was no Queen then, but just a sergeant in an air force base in the end of fucking nowhere... am I telling this story, or are you?"

"I lived it too, sir," Alex points out, unable to hide his grin this time, and Gabriel rolls his eyes. Evelyn's rise to power - and the subsequent growth of Helena City around Hill AFB - was a story that the Helenae taught their children during the Fundamental Years, but Gabriel still enjoyed harping on about it every so often. 

"I used to kill your kind for fun," Gabriel reminds him, a little peevishly, but Alex has also long learned to read Gabriel's signs, and the archangel's shoulders are still relaxed, his wings still folded in the space of the _other_. Gabriel's in a good mood. 

"Until you realized that it substantially diminished the supply of 'real' pudding?" 

"Yes," Gabriel sighs, "I concede. There is one thing that your species does better than mine, and that is pudding. Everything else - eh." The archangel makes a dismissive, downward-slicing gesture. 

"I'm surprised that you saved me at all, sir," Alex notes, only partly joking, as he always did. 

As usual, Gabriel evades, with a sharp smile, as they seat themselves at the crystal table set on the open balcony of the Artemisa Overlook, a slate bridge of stone that uncurls high through a glass aviary. Birds shrill their greeting to the early morning beneath them, flitting their colourful way among the carefully tended flowering trees. "Your tiny little squealing self was unaccountably endearing." 

Usually, this is the point when Alex knows to stop pushing, but today he's feeling a little bolder. Maybe it's the feather. "Appealing enough to change sides on the war."

"I didn't change sides," Gabriel corrects pointedly. "Think of it as a ceasefire."

"A ceasefire of nearly two decades?"

"Two decades is only a lot of time to you mortals," Gabriel shrugs. "Apparently you are the 'Chosen One'. If that even remotely means that you will someday be behind any sort of spark that will bring back my Father, then I can wait, and play house with bipedal beasties that occasionally forget to respect me, and... banana and toffee pudding? Why, my compliments to the chef."

The servitor bows deep, gray robes hustling over the slate floor, and continues to lay out dishes for their breakfast. Queen Evelyn had indeed told the kitchens to spare no expense: there is fruit, and thickly cut bacon, fresh eggs, _cheese_ , even. Alex doesn't remember the last time he had cheese. 

"Nothing's happened yet," Alex says doubtfully, helping himself eagerly to portions of everything, except Gabriel's jealously guarded treat. "I'm not even sure what I should be looking for. What I should be _doing_. A hint would be nice. Sir," he adds pointedly, when Gabriel ignores him in lieu of pudding.

"I'm sure that it will come to you in time," Gabriel notes finally, with the indifference of the true immortal. "Evelyn tells me that she'll be convening yet another panel of experts." 

Alex grimaces. "They're just going to tell her the same thing. _Again_. That I will father a baby girl who will be the one to save the world. _Gross_."

"Eh," Gabriel waves the spoon in Alex's general direction, amused, "If it's the _mechanics_ of the matter that concerns you, rest assured, these 'disciples' of the 'Divine Feminine' are all staunch believers in Immaculate Conception. They'll milk you like a cow and then stick a syringe up the reproductive orifices of a bevy of willing women." 

Alex shuts his eyes tightly. "Did you have to say that?"

"I'm sorry," Gabriel stabs the spoon briefly towards the heaped slice of cheese that Alex had slathered on his toast, "Did you have something against cows?"

"Divinity." Alex groans, scrubbing at his eyes, "Gabriel, _please_ don't spoil cheese for me the way you spoiled lemons. It's my _birthday_." 

"Think of it," Gabriel offers loftily, "As an _education_ , little beastie."

II.

Arika, perhaps oddly enough, is waiting for Alex in the Adjutant airfield, the private airfield for Queen Evelyn's inner circle. Nine years' his elder, Arika doesn't in fact look any more than a day older, her lush lips curling into a wicked smile under the shade of her ceremonial pink and purple garb as she catches sight of Alex hurrying towards her.

"Where's the archangel?"

"He got bored," Alex confesses. Gabriel's attention span usually lasted as long as the pudding did: once it was gone, he usually winged off, either to the obsidian spire of an eyrie constructed for him in the centre of Helena or away to parts unknown. 

Arika purses her lips, studying Alex. "Nothing changed?"

"Nope," Alex admits, and adds, "Sorry."

"No, no, do not be sorry," Arika links her hand around Alex's politely proffered arm. "Destiny cannot be forced." 

"I feel like I should be doing something," Alex says doubtfully. "You and Queen Evelyn - and everyone, except maybe Gabriel - have been so kind to me all my life, you're all like my mothers and sisters. I was hoping that something would be different today." 

"My dear Alex," Arika says dryly, and seems to pick off some lint that Alex cannot quite see off the purple scarf that he wears, "You have already done amply much for Queen Evelyn all these years." 

"I have?" Alex asks, mystified, but Arika pats his arm soothingly, and leads him out into the balmy morning. Just like any of the Helena airfields, the Adjutant is a hotbed of organised activity, from trainee pilots doing drills, to a small cluster of Year Three Fundamentals around their teacher, listening round-eyed to a sergeant as she gesticulates with pride towards her Falcon. 

As always, Alex's mere presence draws attention, far more so than Arika, who has long been rumoured to be someday named Consort, and he ducks his head in embarrassment as people start to stare, whisper and point. "Chin up, Alex," Arika says, amused again. "You wear the Queen's colours. Be proud."

"I'm never going to get used to this," Alex mutters. 

"This?"

"People looking at me like I'm about to change the world."

"Ahh," Arika offers him a faint, sly smile, and pats his arm again. "You should enjoy it. Many people have to work to be famous. To be noticed." 

"I don't like to be famous," Alex mumbles, allowing Arika to tug him away from the main bustle of Adjutant to the furthermost hangar. Members of Helena's all-female elite militia, the Valkyries, snap to attention as they come closer, their black kevlar uniforms worn with a bright shock of purple silk over the waist, and Alex nods awkwardly to them as Arika leads him into the hangar. 

Alex has been in here before - the hangar is usually for Arika's private use, occupied by her personal jet, but today the jet is missing, and in pride of place is something under a misshapen dome of white cloth. Startled, Alex comes to a complete stop, nearly tipping Arika off balance.

" _No_ ," Alex says, wide-eyed with disbelief. "Really?" 

"Really," Arika teases, and steps away. "Go on, unwrap it." 

The cloth falls away easily enough, revealing a sleek gray helicopter with a spreading fan of folding rotor blades and a sleek load of .50-caliber machine guns. It's an aircraft that any Helenae would be able to recognise upon sight - an MH-60G Pave Hawk, her tail emblazoned with the uncurling lotus dais that forms the House Crest of Queen Evelyn.

"No _way_!" Alex runs his hands excitedly over the cold metal hull. "I thought that guys weren't allowed to fly military-grade stuff!" 

"Men are _less suited_ to flying military-grade aircraft," Arika corrects mildly. "But you are not just any man. You are the Chosen One, and you are Queen Evelyn's adopted son, her only child. Beautiful, isn't she?" Arika adds fondly, as she glides over, to trail her fingers up under the blunt nose of the helicopter. "Very difficult to attain and repair, I should add." 

"Oh man!" Unable to help himself, Alex rushes over, picking up Arika in a tight hug and swinging her around as she laughs. "This is the best birthday _ever_. Thank you so much! And the Queen! I've got to-"

"She'll be in Council for the rest of the day." Arika smooths down her clothes as Alex sets her down. "But I'm sure that she's already anticipated your excitement. You'll begin pilot training tomorrow, directly under Lieutenant Sheera Hanuman. She won't be easy on you just because of who you are."

"I don't care," Alex says eagerly, "I'll be the _best_ student, I promise. I want to look inside!"

"She hasn't been fuelled," Arika notes, but smiles indulgently when Alex scrambles into the cockpit anyway, reverently seating himself in the pilot's seat, fitting his long legs under the console. If he could hug the aircraft from the inside, he _would_. In a few days or so, Alex was going to learn how to _fly_. Become a true Helenae. 

And maybe, just maybe, the key to unlocking _what_ he really was - maybe it lay in the blue, eternal dome of the sky. Maybe he could finally make Queen Evelyn proud.

III.

Despite curfew, Alex can't help but sneak out of his rooms at night, stealing down to the Adjutant airfield. He's lived in Helena all his life, and he knows every inch of Bright, the fortress-airbase that Queen Evelyn calls home, the imperial core of Helena. Alex loops around Valkyrie patrols, sneaks down servitor corridors, until he finally crabs his way carefully across the main airfield, heading towards the private hangar.

He knows that he's courting a serious scolding here, from Queen Evelyn at the very least, but Alex just wants to see _his_ Pave Hawk again. Drink in its beauty. Think of a name. At dinner, Alex had dutifully suggested that the aircraft be named by the Queen, but she had dismissed the idea outright, and seated at her right hand, Arika had offered Alex a faint, conspirator's smile. 

The Valkyrie patrol loops around the Minerva Hangar, and hidden behind a set of crated supplies, Alex lets out a slow breath. He hops quickly over towards the next set of crates, keeping an eye out for any change in the patrol routes, and as such, distracted, Alex doesn't see the shadow growing over him until it lands on his back. 

A hand clamps over his mouth even as another clenches tight in the collar of his jacket with impossible strength, and Alex is hauled up into the air in a rush of dizzy speed, his stomach dropping all the way to his feet. Blinded by the wind, forcing himself not to instinctively struggle and twist, Alex stays still, squeezing his eyes shut against the rush of air, against the small animal part of his brain screaming at how _high_ he is above the ground, how fragile, what a splash he'll make if he drops- 

When Alex _is_ finally dropped, it's a foot down over a patch of dead grass, and he scrambles to his feet, sputtering, "What the _hell_ , Gabriel-" and sucks in the rest of his outrage, as it's spiked through with fear, instead. 

It's not Gabriel. This new angel is slimmer, dressed like a human, in a black leather trenchcoat, a soft v-necked gray shirt and combat breeches that hug his long legs, tucked into knee-high boots. He's pale, paler than Gabriel, and oddly expressionless, like a doll. His jet-black wings flare wide, and for a single, incongruous moment, lust pulses through Alex's blood like a hammer blow. 

"What-" Alex clears his throat, then draws himself up, mentally kicking himself for not thinking to take any weapon at all on his nighttime indiscretion. "Look, whoever you are," he says tightly, "If you take me back now, _this instant_ , before they find out that I'm gone, maybe, just maybe, I can talk Gabriel into _not_ pulling your head off and using it as a paperweight." 

The angel seems absolutely unfazed, but on the other hand, he's folded away his wings. Which is good. And bad. Alex knows firsthand what an angel's wings can do to a soft, squishy human: Gabriel sometimes spectacularly loses his temper against servitors, particularly if his pudding is not up to standard. But this also looks as though the angel has no intention of taking Alex home anytime soon, and Alex has no fucking clue where they are. He's never been out of Helena before, as far as he knows.

"Alex Lannon. My name is Michael." 

Oh.

Well fuck.

"As in, the archangel?" Alex hazards, and Michael inclines his head a fraction. 

Holy shit. _Michael_. Gabriel's archenemy. Michael, who made his roost in Vega, the rival city to Helena. Michael, who had created in Vega a rigid caste system that forced starvation and privation on over half of its human citizens. 

Instantly, Alex bolts for it. The grassy patch is next to a ruin of a house, and he lunges through the front door, skidding on a blanket of old dust. He's seen movies of old houses like this. They usually had kitchens. And kitchens had knives. 

"I'm not going to hurt you, Alex," Michael calls from behind him, and Alex scrambles through a blur of rooms and corridors until he finally, thank Divinity, finds what he's looking for, and _there_ on the wall, there's a knife rack. He picks up the steak knife and whirls around, teeth bared. 

At the doorway to the kitchen, Michael props a hip against the dusty, worn old frame, hands folded across his chest. "I just want to talk to you." 

"Okay. We're talking." 

"Put the knife down before you hurt yourself." 

"How about you fuck off to the other side of the house, maybe, and then we talk? Think of the hallway as a temporary demilitarised zone."

Somewhat to Alex's confusion, Michael's mouth curls faintly, upwards. "You are very much like your father." 

"Yeah?" Alex challenges, defiant. "Did you kill him?"

"No. He was my friend," Michael says, with a very faint frown. "What lies have Gabriel been feeding you, Alex?" 

"Pretty sure that he would have mentioned it if my _dad_ happened to have an archangel bestie," Alex growls, and just as his personal teacher, Major Nikya has taught him, he lunges with as little warning as he can manage, blade sweeping down and up, angling to gut his opponent. He can't hope to outrun an archangel. He can only fight, and pray to the Divine Feminine that he takes Michael by surprise. 

Michael jerks back with unnatural speed, twisting away from Alex's follow-up swipe, and then he strikes, his hand a blur as he darts up to slam Alex's knife hand sharply against the door frame, making Alex yelp and drop his blade. 

"Alex," Michael begins, but Alex has one more trick up his sleeve, one that he just remembered. He has his hand up to his neck, curling his fingers in the chain and tugging sharply, snapping the delicate catch of the chain even as he sweeps Gabriel's feather up from under his coat, catching the feather between his knuckles and _stabbing_. 

Michael flinches away, but not quickly enough, he's too close - Alex manages to sink the unyielding feather high up in Michael's shoulder. The archangel lets out a choked yelp of shock and pain, and Alex takes the opportunity to blindly scramble past, fleeing, then he yelps as a heavy blow thuds into the back of his knees, bowling him across the room. 

Alex tries to get to his feet, but Michael is already _there_ , wings outstretched, dragging him up again by the scruff of his neck, and the steel chain attached to Gabriel's feather clatters as the feather is tossed away. Alex twists, snarling and clawing, but Michael ignores him, hauling him up against the wall. It takes Alex's night vision a moment to adjust, but then he sees it. Scratchings. _Writings_. Across the walls, all around, leading to the kitchen. Some insane pattern, a script that Alex cannot remotely begin to understand, here and there a pattern, like a mandala, there a long mathematical pattern. 

"What...?" Alex blinks, his natural curiosity for a moment overwhelming his fear. "What is this?"

"You should know," Michael's tone is as unemotional as ever. "You _are_ the Chosen One."

"Sorry," Alex says sarcastically, "But I don't think I drank some sort of Milk of Chickenscratch Understanding along with my breakfast this morning."

Michael sighs. "Gabriel's influence upon you is painfully obvious. Try harder." He shakes Alex pointedly.

"So if I can read it, you'll let me go?" Alex asks, warily.

"If you like." 

Okay. That was something. Michael lets go of Alex, so suddenly that Alex's knees bark against the floor, and he ends up sprawled on a heap against a rusting cot. The old mattress has a strange smell, and a weird discoloured stain, and try as he might Alex ends up scrabbling against it in order to get upright and _that_ 's when the world goes to hell.

He feels a - he doesn't know what he feels. It's like a push, a pull, an electric tingle that jumps up from his outstretched palms, jolting up his arms, numbing him at first, then leaving in its wake a threading, spreading warmth. Startled, Alex staggers to his feet, stripping back the sleeves of his white jacket, and in the dull moonlight, he sees a trace of blue-green ink blossom in intricate script up his arms, like an infection. As though the patterns had always been writ there, under his skin.

"What - what is this?" Alex demands, horrified. "What did you do?"

"Calm down, Alex," Michael tilts his head slightly. "Yes. I see."

"You 'see'?" Alex snarls. "What was on that bed? What _happened_ here? What the fuck is-" 

The words stutter and stop in his throat as his vision seems to skew, skidding away from the present into a dull warm light, the late afternoon, and on the bed is a grizzled man, sweating and filthy, in a stained white sleeveless shirt and torn jeans. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin scrawled over with the same odd script, and he mumbles to himself, closing his eyes briefly as his breath hisses out among his teeth. Then he scrabbles over at the bed, tugging up a revolver. He loads it, spins the barrel, and inserts the muzzle into his mouth.

The first shot clicks, chambering on empty. The second-

Alex staggers away from the vision, stumbling, and barely manages to brace himself against the wall as he retches, throwing up until his stomach is empty and he's dry-heaving. Dizzy with shock, Alex barely struggles when Michael grabs him again, belt and collar, dragging him out of the house, then again taking off into the air. Miserable and uneasy, it's all Alex can do to keep his stomach under control as the ground drops away under them both.

IV.

Michael dumps him in a circular room high up above what is presumably Vega, and then flits off, the asshole. Still miserable, his stomach in knots, Alex stumbles over to the bathroom, dry heaves some more, then washes his face and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks drained, like he'd gone three rounds with a bunch of Valkyries and gotten rolled each time, and as he gingerly pulls off his jacket, then his shirt, he notices that the tattoos dip all around his chest, along his ribs, spanning out over his spine.

As he stares at the tattoos on his back in the reflection, they seem to shift, twisting and curling against each other, and letters fade up into sight, strangely lit, like seams into a cherry-hot furnace. 

_Beware those closest to you_  
 _The Angel of Death stayed his blade_  
 _The Angel Who Questions needs faith_  
 _The die is cast_  
 _Apotheosis is a cycle_

"I'm starting to miss the chickenscratch," Alex says, wide-eyed, even as the tattoos seem to shift and lock back into their original pattern. 

For all his attempts to study the tattoos, they do little more than shift and reset restlessly against each other, and absorbed, Alex doesn't notice Michael's return until he looks up from the reflection of his ribs to see the archangel watching him in the mirror. 

"Whoah!" Alex startles. "Fucking _knock_ or something!" 

There's something avid in Michael's eyes, like possessiveness, although his expression doesn't outwardly change. "I have informed the council of this city of your presence, and have left them to their deliberations." 

"Yeah?" Alex asks belligerently, "Helena has the _only_ airfleet left in the world, and Queen Evelyn is my _mother_. If she hears that you've _kidnapped_ me, she'll bomb your city into _slag_."

"Evelyn is not your mother," Michael frowns a little. "Your true mother died to keep you safe."

The words hit him like a gut punch, matter-of-fact as they are, and Alex bares his teeth, shifting his weight into a defensive crouch. "What do you know about that?"

"I know that I arrived too late to save her. I know that I arrived too late to retrieve you. That all I could do was save your father, Jeep, and even then, his mind was near-shattered with grief."

"'Jeep'?" Alex repeats, contemptuous. "Can't you have made up a more believable name than that? Maybe 'Cadillac'? Or 'Harley'?" 

"That was his name," Michael's frown deepens a fraction. "Your mother was named Charlie-"

"All right, now I _know_ that you're shitting me. Angels may have a 'non-gendered language', but humans fucking _do_. Charlie is a _guy's name_ , genius."

"Would you _listen_." Michael's voice cracks like a whip, the bite all the sharper for that it had snapped out from neutral. "I am telling you the truth. Gabriel's creatures killed your mother. Gabriel _stole_ you."

"I know that his '8-balls' killed my birth mother," Alex growls. "I also know that he had a change of heart when he picked me up. I know that he's the reason why the War's come to a standstill. _And_ I know that he and the _only_ mother who's mattered to me are going to kick _your_ ass once they realize that you've got me. Or maybe I'll do it first," he sneers, jerking his chin at the rent in Michael's jacket, the stain from the one successful stab. 

"You will stay here until you are prepared to see reason," Michael concludes, and flips off.

"Hey!" Alex snarls after him. "You feathery fucking bastard! What is this, detention? I'm _eighteen_ , not _eight!_ " 

Unfortunately, Michael's determined to treat him like some sort of misbehaving puppy, and after three days of meals getting delivered by silent guards with no further human or angel contact, Alex thinks that he's possibly going a little stir crazy. The tattoos have failed so far to reveal some sort of genius escape plan - _so_ useful - and it's a long, long way to drop.

On the fourth day, while he's sitting on the balcony, going through the meditation exercises that Nikya had once forced him to learn, the guards usher in a couple of graying old men, one considerably more dessicated than the other. Severe face is dressed in a sharp black suit. Prune face is in a white military uniform. 

Alex doesn't bother to get up from the lotus position. "Visitors! What a nice surprise. Forgive me if I don't make anyone a cup of fucking tea."

Severe face sniffs disapprovingly. "Michael tells us that you are the Chosen One."

"Divinity save us, can we come up with a title that makes me sound _less_ like a douchebag?" 

"The tattoos on his arms," Prune face murmurs, then he sighs. "Alex Lannon, I am General Riesen. This is my colleague, David Whele, the Secretary of Commerce. We are part of the Council."

"The way _I_ heard it," Alex drawls, tilting his head at the General, "You're Michael's wrinkly little human puppet, running Vega to his tune. You put in the number system. Stratified the city. Everyone else in your Council thinks that you shit gold and spit silver."

Oddly enough, this gets a faint ghost of a smile from Whele, even as Riesen scowls at him. "Your situation is precarious, Lannon. Our cities are not friendly, and-"

"And you're here to tell me that my _mother_ Queen Evelyn has just realized where I am, and oh, she's offered terms involving bombing runs?"

"We are negotiating with Queen Evelyn at present," Riesen retorts, his tone wintry, and something within Alex sinks a little in relief. "Your 'mother' sided with a genocidal maniac, _Lannon_. Gabriel is behind the near-extinction of our _species_." 

"I think that maybe what _you've_ failed to notice from your _own_ pet archangel is that they don't exactly make any real distinction between us and a chicken," Alex counters. "You can't judge them the same way we judge ourselves. Gabriel and Michael and the others? They've been kicking around since _before_ our distant ancestors figured out that they could crawl out of the sea. To them, we're kinda just like a species of dog that learned how to bark in a more complex sort of harmony." 

"You worship the angels," Riesen accuses.

"Hah! No. I got _that_ shaken out of me when I was a kid." There was really nothing like watching an archangel eat himself into a temporary coma on pudding to put a heavy wrench in the worship works. "I'm saying that we can either try the 'us versus them' thing, like you guys seem to be maybe-not-really doing, or we can learn to live with them." 

"We _are_ living with them. The one that matters. The one who turned against his own kind-"

"Yeah, yeah," Alex snorts. "How's that working out for you, huh? I bet Michael's an 'advisor' to your Council, hm? Let me tell you how much Gabriel 'contributes' to the governance of Helena. _Nothing_. Zilch. He doesn't give a flying fuck. We do our thing, he does his thing. _That's_ how we live with them."

He's starting to tread a little on thin ice here: Riesen's expression is darkening quickly, and the General abruptly spins on his heel, marching out of the room. Whele lingers, listening until the footsteps fade, and then he starts to chuckle, and Alex stiffens, hackles rising. 

"You are rather more different than what Michael had us believe."

"Really now," Alex says, mystified. "What did he say?"

"That you had been brainwashed by Gabriel. That you were Gabriel's creature. That we had to win you over to our side. I agree on the very last point," Whele adds, "But not on the first two."

"Have you met the Queen? There's no 'winning' anyone over, not with her. You just do what she wants, and roll with the blows."

"I have not had the pleasure of meeting the Queen. But I do claim some acquaintance with her consort to be, the Lady Arika," Whele raises his eyebrows. "She tells me that Evelyn is furious. With Michael, certainly. With us. And also with you."

Arika? And _Whele_? "Nothing new there." 

"Given how... so very difficult Queen Evelyn can be when she is in a rage," Whele continues smoothly, "Perhaps it would be within your interest to stay with _us_ for a while. You're right. Vega is rife with problems. We need someone with an understanding of archangels and their habits. And their weaknesses. You seem like an intelligent young man-"

Alex guffaws. "What, do you think Gabriel _confides_ in me? Funny. That's real funny."

"Not Gabriel. But Michael seems to think that you are... special. I can tell you this, _boy_ ," Whele says mildly. "Your Queen Evelyn can rail at us all she likes, but if Michael does not want you to leave, then Riesen will never cave to the Queen's demands, even if she declares war upon us. I am the only friend that you have here. Your _closest_ ally. If you ever want to leave, think about that - carefully." 

_Beware those closest to you,_ Alex thinks, then winces as he feels the ink shift within his left arm. He waits until Whele is gone before pulling up his sleeve, but he sees nothing but the endless spiral of meaningless patterns.

V.

Somehow, Whele gets Michael to agree to cough up Alex, and Alex gets moved from being stir crazy in an archangel's roost to going slightly less stir crazy in the Whele fortress-manse-giant bachelor pad. The house has a fucking _lion enclosure_. Once, Alex almost swears that he catches a glimpse of Whele staring with creepy intensity at the male lion. It weirds the fuck out of him.

What's even _weirder_ is Alex's realization that he has worshippers. In Vega. There's a religion called Saviourism, apparently, and Whele's son, William, is a fresh-faced convert who alternates between fawning respect and a gangly curiosity. The discovery of this new brand of crazy deals a serious blow to Alex's already Gabriel-affected opinion of humanity, and he isn't really sure what to say whenever William gushes at him.

Still, William is around Alex's age, which is a little comforting, as is William's friend, another Saviourism convert, Claire Riesen. Maybe Alex is a political prisoner, but at least he has friends. Kinda. Maybe. 

This lasts about a week before Queen Evelyn, never really known for patience, lights up a streak of fire across Vega, coming precariously close to the Riesen fortress. One of the F-16s get shot down, smashing into a twisted wreckage of steel and blazing jet fuel against the city wall, but the rest get off unscathed, their anti-AA decoys bursting into orange blooms over Vega instead. 

"Tell her to stop it," Claire urges him, in the Whele fortress. Archangel Corps are watching them from the doors, and Alex thinks that even if he makes a break for the windows, they probably have someone on the grounds, too. Besides, he won't make it far in the walled city. "People are dying!"

"Sorry, what?" Alex feigns surprise. "Tell your _father_ to let me go home to my _mother_."

"You are the _saviour_ ," William blinks his huge, gormlessly limpid eyes at Alex. "Why would you wish to return to Helena, whose populace indulges in the heretical worship of the 'Divine Feminine'? Here, you are more than human."

"Okay, firstly, nobody says 'populace' in normal conversation any longer," Alex says firmly. "Secondly _I want to go home_."

Claire doesn't give up, and annoyed, Alex decides to chance the window, after all. At least it might be 'educational'.

Surprisingly enough, he manages to get as far as scaling the gate to the Whele estate before Michael swoops down on him like a hawk, and bears him back up to his eyrie. Bastard. Sprawled on the balcony, trying to get his stomach back into normal gravity, Alex gasps, "Some day, I'm going to throw up on you when you do that."

"Gabriel is fond of you," Michael says, without preamble. "That surprises me." 

"Really? What clued you in?" Alex drawls. "The fact that he kinda _brought me up_... except sort of in an 'unstable psychotic uncle' sort of way... or the fact that I was wearing his _feather_ when we met, or-"

"I spoke to him. This morning. We came to blows." Michael breezes on, as if Alex hadn't spoken. "He demanded your safe return. 'Safe' was emphasized."

"People would usually think that it's an _implied_ term, actually. Sort of being part of the general spirit of the thing in a hostage return."

"You've managed to change him," Michael looms suddenly into his vision, and if there's one thing skinny too-pale leather-clad angels are good at, it's looming like a fucking thundercloud about to shit all over someone's parade. "That is an unparalleled feat." 

_The Angel of Death stayed his blade,_ Alex thinks, and he's half-expecting it this time, when he feels _something_ shift under his skin, near his left wrist. 

"He's not so bad, if he's occupied with something sweet," Alex ventures cautiously, hoping that Michael hadn't noticed any change in his expression. 

"He thinks that you will help our Father to return. Is that true? Have you deciphered the tattoos?"

"Haven't been able to read them recently," Alex admits honestly. 

"Try. You must try." 

"Look," Alex growls, pushing himself up and to his feet, "Haven't you had enough? Queen Evelyn's going to drop another line of bombs tomorrow, you know it. You think she gives a fuck if she loses a couple of F-16s to your SAMs? You think that Gabriel-"

Michael kisses him then, hard on the mouth, and whoa. Whoa. What?

Frozen to the spot, Alex doesn't react, wide-eyed as Michael abruptly jerks back, as though burned, and Divinity, but the hunger in his eyes, the possessiveness. "Five minutes," Michael murmurs, inches apart, "Five minutes and I would have reached you first. You would have been mine, not Gabriel's. Mine to watch over. _Mine_."

Involuntarily, Alex licks nervously at his lower lip. Close up, Michael's natural - or unnatural - beauty is all the more perfect. The archangel is _flawless_ , ethereally so, and Alex's knees are starting to feel a little weak.

Clearly, his libido isn't getting with the Great Plan to Get the Fuck Out of Dodge. Alex takes in an unsteady breath, and Michael's eyes narrow further. Hands jerk his jacket off him, ripping buttons, then drag Alex close into another searing kiss, pinning him with unbreakable strength when Alex starts to writhe, and fuck. That's hot. Alex whimpers into Michael's mouth, and finds himself riding Michael's thigh, rubbing shamelessly against it, dazed, and Divinity, he's never felt something like this before. It's insane. 

"Have you done this with Gabriel?" Michael whispers hotly into Alex's ear, as he shreds Alex's shirt with a single sharp tug, then runs his strangely soft, cool hands with a hungry restlessness over Alex's back, tracing tattoos, mapping the script. "Has he touched you like this?" 

"No one," Alex admits, without thinking, then flushes when Michael growls, low and guttural and nothing human, and then Alex finds himself bounced on the large bed, hands skating for purchase on the silk sheets as Michael steadies himself between his thighs, black wings unfolding in an arcing span over the bed, like every guilty adolescent fantasy of Alex's made flesh. 

"You lie," Michael breathes, as he strips Alex down, his gaze so hot with lust that Alex can do nothing more than bend to the archangel's will. Soft, elegant hands stroke up under Alex's thighs, spreading them, rubbing thumbs up the spiralling garters of patterned script that run along his legs from his knees up to his hips. "You lie," Michael murmurs again, as he leans down to bite, over one nipple, hard enough that Alex twists with a yelp, then moans as Michael licks him, over the dents that his teeth have made, over his hardening nipple, pleasure a gritty pulse that causes him to arch into Michael's mouth, to whimper as Michael's wings flare wide, mottling shadows over them both.

Alex doesn't know what to do with his hands, so he settles them awkwardly on Michael's shoulders, only to find them pinned pointedly to the bed as Michael shifts his attention to the other nipple, tracing a swirl of ink across Alex's chest as he does. Under his skin, the tattoos shift and uncurl in Michael's wake, as though rippling under the pressure of his tongue, and the sensation, Divinity, the _sensation_. It's as though Michael is lightning a fire under Alex's skin itself, a thrumming ecstasy that sits high above mere pleasure, like a drug, like revelation. As though he knows this, Michael's touch slows, turns reverent rather than hungry, and ink twists and curls under his mouth as he kisses down to Alex's spreading thighs, to where Alex's cock is starting to leak onto his belly. 

"Hold yourself open," Michael whispers, guiding Alex's hands to his knees, and Alex whines; there's something straining under Michael's tone, a force of Creation barely contained under a veneer of humanity, a welling echo of a miracle of existence that has touched the beginning of eternity and will see the end yet. He whines, and obeys, and Michael groans as he noses at the coarse hair at the base of Alex's swollen cock, breathing him in, holding him down. 

Wings heave and sweep a gust of air briefly against Alex as Michael shifts to swallow, taking him down, all unhurried inhuman grace, tight and so _wet_ , Divinity save him, but Alex is quite possibly about to go insane. He thinks he's possibly screaming, but he isn't sure, wired on Michael's ruthlessness, his hunger, allowing himself to be devoured, and devoured again. When Alex comes close, Michael pulls away, to press kisses over his thighs, shifting and swirling the ink until Alex's breathing grows less frantic, and then it's the same sweet torture all over again. 

Alex's resolve not to beg lasts about two cycles of this, then he begs himself hoarse, then breathless, and finally, when he sobs, _that's_ when Michael lets him come, swallowing Alex deep and _growling_. Release has never been so fucking sweet. 

Michael doesn't even strip off when he curls up beside Alex, and he seems utterly unfazed by the fact that Alex is far too exhausted to even remotely try to politely return the favour. Instead, Michael kisses Alex's shoulder, and watches with interest as the ink patterns uncurl away from him for a moment before settling back into place. When Michael does it again, further, against Alex's chest, Alex swats wearily at him. 

"I can feel that."

"Mm," Michael does let up, though, folding away his wings, shifting up to rest his weight on an elbow, tracing the patterns on Alex's arm. They don't shift, thank Divinity, but it's still ticklish, and Alex pointedly rolls onto his flank, away from Michael. 

That doesn't deter the archangel - lips unsettle a sensitive path of ink down the nape of his neck, and Alex groans, arching despite himself, his breathing starting to hitch. "Stop that." 

"I have been searching for you. All this time," Michael murmurs. "I was sure that you were in Helena. But I could not get close. Not I, not any of my agents."

Not until Alex had stupidly decided to break all the rules and sneak out into the airfield in the dead of night by himself, at least. Stupid Alex. Still, Alex can't quite find it in himself to be annoyed right now. "So _you're_ the reason I could never play outside," Alex says instead, facetiously.

There's a soft huff of breath against his neck, as though in amusement, or in exasperation. "I had to keep the faith. That there would be an opportunity. That you would come into your own." Fingers trail down his arm, ticklish again. "Angels need faith most of all."

 _The Angel Who Questions,_ Alex realizes, with a start, and breathes out as he feels the shift of ink high against his left bicep. He thinks, maybe - just maybe - that he knows what to do next.

"Get me out of here tomorrow," Alex tells Michael, trying to keep his voice steady. "Somewhere away from Vega. And then summon Gabriel."

The hand on Alex's arm stills. "You should be kept apart from Gabriel. He's very dangerous."

Alex grits his teeth, swallowing his retort, and says, instead, as calmly as he can, "Apotheosis is a cycle." 

This time, Michael's fingers curl over his arm, and when the archangel nuzzles the nape of Alex's neck, Alex thinks that he hears the faintest hitch of breath.

VI.

Because of some feathery bastard love of melodrama, Michael hauls Alex out of Vega just before daybreak, out onto some random cliff in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, and then just starts flapping his wings, like fanning the air. Alex stares at him for a moment, yawns, then sits down on the edge of the cliff, rubbing his face. At least Michael had allowed him to clean up before the abrupt road trip, but it was a near thing.

Gabriel lands in a whisper of air, between Alex and Michael, blade in hand, wings mantled in a display of aggression that Alex recognises all too well. Alex scrambles to his feet quickly. "Hey, Gabriel. It's okay."

"You are in so much trouble right now," Gabriel tells him, without looking back. 

"All right, so I shouldn't have sneaked out to see my new present, and the kidnapping bit was wrong but partly my fault," Alex says hastily, "But something weirdly magic happened and I think I've finally had that thing that I wanted as part of the Chosen One, you know, the _thing_ that is not horns or rainbows or-"

Gabriel half-turns, frowning at him as he babbles, then Michael says something in the angel language, the totally incomprehensible and occasionally seemingly vowel-less tongue that Alex has never been able to remotely understand. Gabriel retorts something sharply, then he grabs Alex's left wrist and shoves up his sleeve. His frown deepens, then he sighs, and sheathes his blade, and starts chattering away at Michael in their lingo.

Excluded, Alex watches them warily for a moment before sitting back down. He's cast the die, for good or ill, and he takes in a slow breath, as he feels the ink shift, just above his elbow. 

Eventually, Gabriel sits down beside him, his longer legs dangling into space, wings folded away. "Michael will come with us to Helena."

"Really?" Alex blinks. "I was hoping to delay it until we calmed the Queen down a little. A lot," he amends, at Gabriel's briefly pained expression. "Or she'll probably use his balls as shooting practice." 

"Michael can handle himself against a human," Gabriel shrugs, then he briefly scowls. "Although my feather was _not_ meant for stabbing other angels with, _Alex_."

"I was improvising," Alex says defensively. "Did it give you a headache or something?"

"Similar. It causes a... dissonance." Gabriel taps the hilt of his sword pointedly. "Why do you think we fight each other with blades, rather than with our wings?"

"But until that point I bet you didn't realize that I was missing, let alone kidnapped. So it all turned out well in the end?" 

"See if I give you any more presents," Gabriel retorts, glancing over his shoulder. "Understand what I've had to deal with? Be grateful that you weren't the one watching over the little beastie all this while."

Michael murmurs something in the angel tongue, and sits down on the opposite side of Alex, with rather more grace than Gabriel. "'Apotheosis is a cycle'," he prompts, when Alex doesn't comment. "What did you mean?"

"I've got a gut feeling," Alex admits, and to his surprise, Michael goes silent, and there isn't even a sarcastic comment from Gabriel. They _do_ believe in him, Alex realizes slowly. They want to believe. They miss their maker. Their Father. The angels are a species sundered from purpose, and chaos has bred between the fragments. 

So Alex waits, watching the skyline, until orange bars of light dart up over the few clouds, until the sky grades brighter and brighter, in yellow and pink and gold. _Apotheosis is a cycle,_ Alex thinks, of destruction, of desolation and despair, and then, at the start of the end which is another beginning, there is rebirth, like the sun rising again.

Rebirth.

The ink shifts, like tumblers in a lock, under his elbow, and Alex holds up his left arm, waiting for letters to print themselves across his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> twitter - manic_intent  
> tumblr - manic-intent
> 
> EDIT: After some googling I think 'Alex Lannon' is probably the correct spelling, following the Syfy page and not various tv reviews... edited.


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